The Scariest One Of All

Whew! Caught up in the Halloween plus House Guest frenzy over here! I've been promising people pictures of the jack-o-lanterns, so I am taking time out of my busy Snickers-eating schedule to post a few photos. Above, you can see the spider and the bat. My photographic skills (or lack thereof, really) do not do justice to these pumpkins. They looked fantastic. Here's a close-up of the spider:





This one is supposed to be a kitty cat, but it sort of didn't work:




As I do not possess math skills advanced enough to enable me to buy the proper number of pumpkins for our family, Susie and Rachel had to share this one. Rachel carved the cat face on the front, and Susie selected a more typical jack-0-lantern visage for the back:




And the last one, alas, does not have a picture that would adequately represent its awesomeness. Theo found the pattern and carved it while I was out. He is also responsible for the carved commentary near the bottom (so don't yell at me, okay?). People were coming over just to see it (and take pictures), it was so awesome. This photo of it simply sucks:


It looks, in this photo, to be portraying some member of the Beat Generation; but I swear, in person, it was such a good representation of the current governor of Alaska that people walking by on the sidewalk would stop and exclaim, "Sarah!"

Do you see how in the photo the pumpkin appears to be levitating? That is totally creeping me out. Do you think it's a sign?

Oh - and we had 2 dalmatian puppies, one robot, and one lego piece trick-or-treating this year. In case you were wondering. The lego costume was easy (meaning, Larry took care of it), and so was the robot. But the dalmatian puppies? I struggled to create a costume for Rachel that would match her sister's pre-made one. You know, these things are way trickier than they look. At least, for craft-impaired people like me. In fact, the only reason Rachel had a tail at all is because Auntie Kate leapt into the breach this week, as it were, and saved my faltering efforts with her special creative powers. I owe her big.

And now, back to my previously scheduled Snickers...

As The Food Turns: Election Week Edition

There is no doubt we are living in an exciting, unpredictable time, what with a global economic crisis and a crucial US election looming on the horizon. Everywhere I look, people are discussing the complicated issues of economic reform, abortion rights, immigration laws, and universal health insurance, just to name a few of today's hot-button topics.

And me? Well, I'm cleaning out my fridge. That's right - in a world fraught with crisis and change, there is only one thing you can count on: Suburban Correspondent's Wednesday afternoon fridge frenzy. Isn't that sort of comforting? Think about it - no matter who wins the election next week, you can still come here the next day and witness my latest edifice of inedible former comestibles. And that's a promise.

Over to the left, observant readers will notice an open but full can of tomato sauce atop a half-full carton of low-sodium chicken broth, which itself perches precariously on a glass container containing a single serving of our famous Enchilala Duff along with a lone taco shell; this container, in turn, sits Jenga-block-style atop my Tupperware celery keeper, which apparently was not doing its job (as evidenced by the photo to the right).

At the base of the stack is, quite frankly, an impostor. I had assumed it was a chicken dish of unknown origination date; but upon closer inspection (after the photo shoot) I discovered that this particular leftover entree was a mere 2 days old, and therefore ineligible for participation in this weekly feature. Sorry about that.

Despite my impressive tower-building talents (finely honed by years of playing with Duplos/Legos), I was unable to figure out a way to include this pitcher of orange-juice-gone-bad in the stack. Believe me, I tried. But, alas! Such an achievement must wait for one who has fridge-cleaning skills far greater than mine.

Perhaps one of our potential First Ladies would like to have a crack at it? Cindy? Michelle? Aren't you lovely ladies anxious to show the voting populace (well, a small segment of it, anyway) that those White House refrigerators will be in experienced hands? Or are you both, perhaps, housekeeping mavericks who order take-out every night? Inquiring minds want to know...

In Which I Sell Out

Well, Sarah has solved for me the riddle of the mysteriously increasing blog stats - apparently, as she informed me in the comments yesterday, everyone on Facebook is searching the Internet for images of their favorite childhood cartoon characters to use for their profile pictures.




Now, a lesser person than moi would undoubtedly try to take advantage of this situation, perhaps even attempt to optimize their search whatevers to extract even more traffic from this profile-picture craze.  Imagine!  Posting random cartoon character pictures on your blog just to attract more "eyeballs," as the Internet folk call it!  And even (on the advice of a certain computer-savvy teen)  listing the character names - Bugs Bunny, say, or Tweety Bird or Fred Flintstone  - all to improve the page's meta http equivalence...or something like that...



I swear, such money-grubbing opportunists are making all us Internet hacks look bad.  How will I ever be taken seriously as an artist again?

On the other hand, I could really use some extra yarn money...














[Bugs Bunny image credit: Hollywood.com]


[Tweety Bird image credit: blogs.voices.com]




[Fred Flintstone image credit: manhattaninfidel.com]

Time Flies...

...when you're procrastinating.

I was supposed to clean the house today in preparation for Auntie Kate's arrival on Tuesday, but instead? I spent it researching (with Theo) the accusations implicit in yet another election-related, out-of-context audio clip e-mailed to me by a friend. The entire afternoon, we did this. I call it a homeschool crash course in critical thinking and analysis of sources. I also call it a great way to neglect my younger children and fall even further behind on laundry.

One more week, right? I really hope Auntie Kate doesn't want to talk politics.

I'm relieved to hear that I am not the only one leery of messing with gas appliances. I swear, your comments make me feel almost normal. Or, at least, less lonely...

Almost midnight - more tomorrow, after I indulge in a desperate housecleaning frenzy...

Living Dangerously

I'm over at MidCenturyModernMoms today, begging people to explain how to let my teen daughter indulge in Facebook safely. There have been some pretty helpful comments, too; so any of you wondering the same thing (I mean, about your teenager, not mine, of course) should check them out.

And someone from Glencoe, Illinois, has practically been living on my blog the last few days. I don't mind, but would it kill you to comment? I feel used.

I'm late posting because I made the mistake of asking Larry to ignite the pilot lights on our 2 gas fireplaces tonight. Well, I more than asked - I threatened to try to do it myself tomorrow, because his sister is coming to visit in 2 days and I know she will not enjoy sleeping in a 58-degree basement (albeit on a brand-new Ektorp sofabed). Not wanting to come home from work to find our house blown up, Larry tackled the job this evening.

You would think it would be easy, wouldn't you? Like, maybe an on-off switch should do the trick?

No. That would be too simple, and it wouldn't provide divorce lawyers with any clients. Instead each fireplace has a big plastic card covered with complex instructions interspersed with dire warnings of what might happen if one does not follow said instructions precisely. So our evening consisted of such scintillating conversation as, "Are you sure that's safe?" and "Hold the glass up! I said, hold it up!" and "Do you smell gas? I smell gas."

This was not quality relationship time. And the children learned a few new words.

Have I mentioned this is his sister who's visiting?